TSA chief jabs back at knife critics

The head of the Transportation Security Administration on Thursday doubled down on a controversial new policy to allow small knives on planes.

“This is part of our ongoing initiative, which we call risk-based security, to really move away from the one-size-fits-all approach that was stood up by necessity after 9/11 to help us focus on the highest-threat items,” said TSA Chief John Pistole on NBC’s “Today” show.

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The decision has been roundly condemned by politicians like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as well as from airlines, pilots and others involved with the flight industry.

Pistole will make the case for the new policy on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He told “Today” that the TSA is more focused on liquid bombs and other substances that have the ability to bring down a plane than on small knives, which, he said, don’t have that kind of capacity for catastrophe.

“The challenge becomes, if we focus on something that will not cause a catastrophic failure to aircraft and miss something that could, then we haven’t done our job” for the millions of Americans who rely on air travel, Pistole said. He reiterated that TSA wants “our focus to be on the highest-threat items.”

He added that the available intelligence indicates that terrorists are much more interested in blowing up airplanes than they are in engaging in attacks with knives — there is “no intelligence” for that kind of scenario, he said — and Pistole expressed confidence that passengers would be open to the policy shift.